Abstract
This article examines the proliferation of alt. health influencers during the COVID-19 pandemic. I analyse the self-presentation strategies used by four alt. health influencers to achieve visibility and status on Instagram over a 12-month period from 11 March 2020, when the pandemic was declared by the World Health Organisation. My analysis reveals the ways in which these influencers appeal to the utopian discourses of early web culture and the underlying principles of wellness culture to build and sustain an online following. While early accounts of micro-celebrity treat participatory culture as democratising and progressive, this article demonstrates how the participatory affordances of social media have been exploited to spread misinformation, conspiratorial thinking and far-right extremism. These findings develop previous work on ‘conspirituality’ by demonstrating how wellness culture and web culture can coalesce for authoritarian ends.
Highlights
Wellness influencer and celebrity chef, Pete Evans, caused controversy in November 2020 for posting an image on Instagram featuring the black sun, a neo-Nazi symbol associated with the Christchurch gunman
In this article I have explored how wellness culture and web culture have been weaponised by certain internet users during the pandemic to self-brand as alt. health influencers
Alt. health influencers exploit the participatory affordances of social media to mobilise followers willing to defend these principles through a ludic journey of self-discovery, self-actualisation and spiritual awakening to give the illusion of agency and collaboration in the fight against evil and corruption
Summary
Wellness influencer and celebrity chef, Pete Evans, caused controversy in November 2020 for posting an image on Instagram featuring the black sun, a neo-Nazi symbol associated with the Christchurch gunman. He shared a post on Instagram the following day of European Journal of Cultural Studies 00(0). In April 2020, he was fined $25,200AUD by the Therapeutic Goods Association for advertising a bio charger for $14,900AUD, which he falsely claimed could be used to treat the ‘Wuhan coronavirus’ He has posted anti-vaccine, antimask and anti-lockdown messages on social media, while endorsing pro-Trump, MAGA and QAnon conspiracy theories. A series of individuals have accumulated large online followings by exploiting the participatory affordances of social media and the underlying principles of wellness culture to spread misinformation, conspiracy theories and far-right discourse
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